Category — w. Most Recent Stuff

DISNEY WORLD NEXT WEEK: JUNE 7 TO JUNE 15, 2014

The material below details operating hours, Extra Magic Hours, parades, and fireworks.

The same stuff is in the image, but organized by park, not by topic.

For more on June 2014 at Walt Disney World, see this.

[Read more →]

Good Disney World itinerary design minimizes waits and walking while fitting in to the idea that people are at Disney World on a vacation, not as part of their through-hike of the Appalachian Trail.

Up until the era of FastPass+, itineraries that minimized waits required both backtracking (to get, and then use, legacy FASTPASSES) and early mornings.

In fact, the scarce resource before FastPass+ was early mornings. Because most people don’t want to get up early—or can’t get their preschoolers/ teens/ husbands up early—the parks are always relatively uncrowded at open. So the way to minimize waits was to arrive well before open, and at open hit rides that would build lines quickly; you’d then start grabbing legacy FASTPASSES for later and do lower wait rides in between FASTPASS return times.

Under FastPass+ this still works fine—at least so far. You can hit a park early, and do (depending on the park) at least two and perhaps as many as four rides in the first hour that later in the day will take hours of waiting. Your FASTPASS+ you’d use later in the morning and early in the afternoon.

But under FastPass+, if you have enough park days, you can skip a whole lot of mornings.

Unless you are on a short trip, what’s scarce under FastPass+ is not mornings, but rather park days, as each added park day gives you three more FastPass+ to pre-book. With park days after the first four going for about $10.65 per day per person, this is a pretty good deal. Because, remember, the reason the parks are least crowded at open is that PEOPLE WANT TO SLEEP IN.

FastPass+ lets itineraries be designed that let people sleep in.

For example, here’s my old Autumn-Winter-Spring, pre-FastPass+ itinerary:

Note the seven ticket days, need for a hopper, two mornings off, five early mornings, and two particularly long days–Sunday and Monday.

Above is my FastPass+ based itinerary for similar weeks. Nine ticket days, but no hopper–so it’s actually less expensive.

It has four mornings off–twice as many–and no comparably long days. Moreover, breaking Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios into two half-days each makes seeing the shows at those parks easier, and limits the walking and backtracking at them each day.

Here’s a shorter variant. Losing a day but keeping the same amount of park time loses a couple of mornings and adds a longer day at Animal Kingdom–a better option, when workable, than doing Hollywood Studios in a day, as getting to HS before open and staying through Fantasmic can make for a long day.

FastPass+ lets you arrive late and then hit typically high wait rides with hardly any delay at times when under the old system you’d either be waiting a while or looking at very late return times.  At the cost of extra ticket days, you get more mornings off!

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I completed last week a process that began in November 2013: updating the Disney World itineraries on this site for FastPass+.

There’s three parts to the itineraries on this site (links are to examples):

• A summary that indicates which park to be in which day, and includes dining
• To-Do Lists that among other steps indicate how many ticket days and hotel nights to buy, and how and which dining and FastPass+ to reserve for when
• Daily agendas that give step by step approaches to each day’s activities

Because dining is reservable 180 days ahead, the first itineraries intended for use launched this week–which meant I had to have summaries done 180 days ahead (hence the November start), FastPass+ done 60 days ahead, and daily agendas done–well, before the end of May, hence the flurry the last few weeks (sorry about those RSS feeds…).

In the meantime, I’ve been running two sets of itineraries–at peak, 24 of them–so that people who had booked dining for January through May could use the old ones, while those aimed at June and later could use the new ones.

That’s done now, as everything (well, everything I could find) now redirects to the new itineraries. (All the new itineraries have “FastPass+” in the name.)

There’s still three core itineraries and nine variants (all shorter but one):

• The Basic Itinerary, which covers my three top-ranked December weeks
• The High-Crowd Itinerary, which covers the busier times of the year and replaces the old “Summer” itinerary
• The Lower-Crowd Itinerary, which covers the rest of the year, and replaces the old “Autumn-Winter-Spring” itinerary

Which weeks they work–and any necessary changes in them those weeks–is covered here.

All the shorter variants are here.

I’ll be posting a little later on the design principles behind these, but the key is that they are designed from the blank page on to take advantage of using FastPass+ to match how most families wish to visit–that is, they include a lot of sleeping in.

Of necessity there’s less “sleeping in” in the high crowd variant than the other two, and less in the shorter variants than in the longer ones–but in all cases there’s more than in the old itineraries!

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This month’s WDW Magazine has hit the stands. Available on iTunes, for Android, and on the web, the issue focuses on Disney World in the summer–special summer offerings and summer coping strategies.

My article for first timers gives some options on how to run your days.

The usual advice to arrive early and take afternoons off is perfectly sound.  But the whole reason it works is that most people don’t want to arrive early.

My article notes how FastPass+ makes later arrivals much more practical.

I’ve been at Disney World a million times in the summer–most recently both last August and last September, and with more Disney World summer coming up soon later in June.

I will never forget one August trip tent camping at Fort Wilderness. You don’t want to tent camp in the summer heat…but I was lucky enough to have pouring rain every day–destroying all my shoes within the first three days of the trip.

That was when I turned to Mickey Crocs as my basic Disney World footwear–impermeable to water, and cooling in the heat!

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DISNEY WORLD NEXT WEEK: MAY 31 TO JUNE 8, 2014

The material below details operating hours, Extra Magic Hours, parades, and fireworks.

The same stuff is in the image, but organized by park, not by topic.

For more on May 2014 at Walt Disney World, see this.

[Read more →]

This To-Do List is for the FastPass+ Six Night Lower Crowd Itinerary.  For To-Do-Lists for other itineraries, see this.

Daily instructions are here:

• Monday
• Tuesday
• Wednesday
• Thursday
• Friday
• Saturday
• Sunday

A. MORE THAN 180 DAYS BEFORE YOUR PLANNED ARRIVAL DATE

(Note that a good travel agent, such as Destinations in Florida, can do almost all of this for you, for free. If you use Destinations in Florida as you travel agent through a link for this site–like this one–then they share a bit of the pixie dust they get from Disney with me.)

1. Confirm your budget, planned dates, intended hotel, kids’ development and heights, and your transportation choice and its availability for your planned dates.

2. Make your plane reservations, if flying. Make any other needed transportation arrangements.

3. Create your My Disney Experience account here and add your family members to it

4. Set up your hotel and tickets. Call 407-939-7675 (preferred, because this allows you to tell the reservationist which building at your resort you wish to be in), or click here to use Disney’s online system.  (Note: if your dates are later than what the online system permits, see this.)

• If you are following my itinerary, you want the hotel you’ve picked for six nights, seven day, no hopper, no “water parks and more” tickets, the Dining Plan, and Disney’s Magical Express
• Itineraries other than mine will have different requirements here

B. 181 DAYS BEFORE YOUR ARRIVAL DATE

1. Decide whether on your first night you’ll be dining at Akershus or the San Angel Inn. Akershus is a princess meal–you’ll have another princess meal at Cinderella’s Royal Table on Wednesday.  If you really like princesses, do Akershus; otherwise, San Angel Inn is the better choice.

2. Login to your MyDisneyExperience.com account, click the “Things to Do” tab at top right, under Dining hit “Make Reservations,” and practice trying to reserve restaurants (hint: use the search box at the upper right).

This may well drive you crazy, but the site works better than it used to…and is likely the only way you can get your Cindy reservations done! (as the site opens up a new reservable day at 6a, whereas the phone reservation line opens at 7a).

3. Collect your planned restaurant reservations together. You will want to do them online in order of hardest to reserve first. This is how they are listed below.

C. EXACTLY 6am EST, EXACTLY 180 DAYS BEFORE YOUR ARRIVAL DATE

(For an 180 day calendar, see this).

1. Be on the restaurant website by at least 5:50am EST, and have your Cindy reservation all set up on the page. Keep refreshing, as you will be let in as soon as Disney’s system decides it is 6a.

2. Make as many of the following as you have patience for, in the exact order listed:

• Cinderella’s Royal Table Lunch (dining plan, two credits): Friday at 11a or later if you can; earlier than 11 only if your sole option…
• Hoop-Dee-Doo Revue (dining plan, two credits) Tuesday 6.15p. The later show keeps you up too late, the ealrier one cuts into your park time
• Crystal Palace (dining plan): Saturday 6p. Can be earlier, but not later
• San Angel Inn or Akershus (dining plan): Monday 7p. Can be earlier but not later.

For those you don’t make online, make them by calling call (407) WDW-DINE (939-3463)

D. 60 DAYS BEFORE YOUR ARRIVAL DATE

1. Go to your MyDisneyExperience account as early as moments after midnight and set up the following FastPass+

• Monday afternoon and evening at Epcot: Tier One: Illuminations. Tier Two: Spaceship Earth and Mission Space. Note that the Illuminations FastPass+ may not be available until closer to your arrival date—if not available, make Test Track your Tier One instead, and try to change it to Illuminations later. Set the Tier Two times for when your travel plans permit you to be in the park. If one is impossible to set at a good time because of your travel schedule, leave it as is—Disney requires you to book three FastPass+.
• Tuesday at the Animal Kingdom: Kilimanjaro Safaris for 12.30-1.30p, Festival of the Lion King for 1.30 to 2.30p, and Kali River Rapids for 3.30-4.30p. (At park open, head to Expedition Everest.)
• Wednesday afternoon at Disney’s Hollywood Studios: Tier One: Toy Story Midway Mania 2.30-3.30p. Tier Two: Voyage of the Little Mermaid (1.30-2.30) and Frozen Sing-Along (3-4p).
• Thursday at Epcot: Tier One: Soarin 10.30-11.30a. Tier Two: Turtle Talk with Crush 12.30-1.30p and a third ride. (At park open, head for Test Track.)
• Friday at the Magic Kingdom:Enchanted Tales with Belle 10a-11a, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train 12.30-1.30p, and Peter Pan 1.30-2.30p. (At park open, head to Space Mountain.)
• Saturday at the Magic Kingdom: Pirates of the Caribbean 9.30-10.30a, Jungle Cruise 10.30-11.30a, Splash Mountian 11.30-12.30p  (At park open, head for Big Thunder Mountain.)
• Sunday morning at Disney’s Hollywood Studios: Tier One: Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster 9a-10a. Tier Two: Star Tours (10-11) and Indiana Jones Stunt Show (At park open, head straight to Tower of Terror.)

2. Do online check in, requesting as you do special location points

3. Customize your MagicBands

E. NOTES ON PACKING ETC. BEFORE YOU LEAVE

1. Bring your MagicBands in your carry-ons

2. If you use Disney’s Magical Express, you do not need to collect your bags at the Orlando airport unless you arrive late in the evening/at night or are an international traveler. Disney will get them for you and, eventually, deliver them directly to your room. Your bags may arrive hours after you do; so, depending on the weather forecasts, have a carry-on with an appropriate change of clothes for Orlando weather on Monday, as you will almost certainly go to Epcot on Monday before your checked bags arrive.

3. Follow the instructions in the Magical Express packet you will receive in the mail regarding both tagging your bags pre-departure, and where to go at the Orlando airport to find your transport to your resort.

4. Bring a copy of your room reservation, confirmation numbers and any tickets for special events you may have received in the mail.

5. Pack breakfast utensils, as they are not always available in the gift shop: bowls, spoons, napkins

6. When you arrive at the hotel, look for the special “On-line Check-in” line, and get into it.

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